by Keith Wommack
Jesus was teaching in a meeting place on a Sunday. He saw a woman who had been twisted and bent over with arthritis for eighteen years. He called her over and said. “Woman, you’re free!” He then touched her. And suddenly she was healed. She stood up straight, and gave glory to God (see Luke 13).
My goal is to heal like that all the time so I’ve been thinking about how I can utilize the Christ, God’s healing presence and power, to untie myself and others from unrelieved trouble. And I was inspired to examine just what really lasts and is persistent. Oh, some physical, financial, and even relationship problems seem to last and last. But I’m finding that instead of the error being unceasing, it is God and His goodness that are eternal!
Errors (anything less than God’s good) are just lies that try to imitate the forever-ness of spiritual goodness. They don’t have real realness so they run out of gas when I stop refueling them with my acceptance. In other words, no lie can seem real unless I believe it.
So, when error is persistent, I have to be more so.
Jesus shared this story: There was a judge in a city who never thought about God or cared for people. A widow in the same city, day after day, yelled at him, “I’m being violated. Protect me!” The judge ignored her. But she didn’t stop. So finally he thought, “I don’t care what God thinks, even less what people think. But because this widow won’t quit pestering me, I’d better do something. I don’t want to be harassed forever.”
Then Jesus said, "Do you hear what that judge, although he is corrupt, is saying? What makes you think God won’t step in and help his chosen people, those who continue to cry for help? Will he stick up for them? I promise you, he will. He won’t drag his feet. But how much persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?" (see Luke 18).
If I am persistent in my faith, love, effort, and spiritual alertness, error runs out of gas because if I stop filling its tank with my acceptance. I learn that God is the unyielding one, not error. There is one immovable Mind, God. God’s power never gives up. It is error that gives in.
After spiritually examining these ideas, I received an e-mail detailing two healings from someone I had been praying with. It described how “long-lasting, constantly growing warts on both of our child’s hands were dissolved. There was no fear and the quote that ‘error simply runs out of fuel’ stuck.” And as well, “A dire financial situation fueled by joblessness was turned around. I felt absolute confidence and peace while apparently facing bankruptcy. I knew…that as a child of God’s creation, my talents were desirable.
Prior joblessness phases that lasted months on end and were accompanied with self-doubt, fear, and frustration, were replaced with a short, 2-week period between assignments, where an employer called Monday, I interviewed Wednesday, and started Thursday. All my various work experiences skills as well as my talents were concentrated in that assignment.”
Again, what am I learning? When error is chronic, persistent, I have to be more so. As I’m impressed with God’s tenacity and unyielding presence—not error’s claim of continued existence—error loses its foothold, its seeming validity, and runs out of gas.
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Thank you for that blog post. I, too, have been thinking about why some issues seem “chronic.” The idea of the error “running out of fuel” is very helpful and helps me to redouble my efforts. Thank you.
A very helpful article - thanks!
thanks so much for this blog. the ideas are really helping me.
I probably am more persistent in my Christian Science faith, love, effort, and spiritual alertness than I have ever been in my whole life, but I find myself in a position of taking material medicine daily. I am finding that I am not able to get error to run out of fuel as far as experiencing healing in those areas for which I am taking medicine. Do I face an impossible situation? Am I going to be required to give up medicine before I can have a healing in CS? Why not have the CS treatment wipe out the need for medicine and the illnesses involved while still taking medicine? If that treatment above worked, there would be no more need for medicine and no more of those illnesses. As far as we know Jesus didn’t question his patients as to what medical treatment they might be under. I know the CS point about not mixing the two methods. So, therefore, it must be that an earnest student of CS trying to do the best he can is just not going to succeed if he finds that at this point in his experience he has to take medicine. Where is it going to end? How is it going to end? Is there a happy ending?
Thank you!! for this support to my own prayers! I, too, want to heal as Jesus did. The first thing I realized was persistence was important….you have given the rest of what it takes….I will persist onward!
Sammie
To Bobbie,
Mary Baker Eddy writes, “A deep sincerity is sure of success, for God takes care of it.” (My 203:18-19)
I am glad to know of your genuine, persistent faith. Because of it, you are and will be blessed. God is taking care of it! Error must end for it never had a beginning. It never has had a history or momentum in your Life, God. Nothing but God’s love and care have ever touched you and yours. Let’s rejoice in this fact.
I believe we all yearn for the day that all error will yield quickly to dynamic prayer. At that period our courage will be enough to overcome every belief of pain and disease. And that day could be now if we would let it. Step by step we are yielding to this present possibility and finding out that when we do our work we will become conscious of the marvelous way in which God does His.
God loves you and I do too.
Thank you Keith for your reply. I know it is going to work out, therefore I can be patient and persistent. I just wish I could get CS treatment to heal the need to take medicine. If I had a need for tobacco or alcohol, I could get CS treatment to heal that need, even while still drinking or smoking. Maybe the need to take medicine is as much a sickness as is the addiction to smoke or drink. Anyhow, I have no doubt about CS. I love it without measure. Only good can come from all this.
To Bobbie,
You stated, “I just wish I could get CS treatment to heal the need to take medicine. If I had a need for tobacco or alcohol, I could get CS treatment to heal that need, even while still drinking or smoking.”
I thought Mary Baker Eddy states it best when she writes, “A Christian, or a Christian Scientist, assumes no more when claiming to work with God in healing the sick, than in converting the sinner. Divine help is as necessary in the one case as in the other. The scientific Principle of healing demands such cooperation; but this unison and its power would be arrested if one were to mix material methods with the spiritual, — were to mingle hygienic rules, drugs, and prayers in the same process, — and thus serve ‘other gods.’” (Mis 39:28)
God is strengthening you and helping you lesson your dependence on something besides His healing ability.
Keith, I agree. I read the whole section Mis 39:28. It just came to me the reason why I answered the blog initially was probably a quite deep seeded feeling of wishing I hadn’t gone the medical route in the first place and trying to find some excusing way and help out of it. God is strengthening me and the need for medicine will diminish as I go forward in His strength. What other way is there? What other way would I want? Thanks for the blog and your responses.
Please don’t feel guilty, Bobbie. We all do the very best that we can and God’s love for us is constant–it doesn’t ebb and flow if we take medicine.
But who wouldn’t want the true freedom that spiritual healing brings? I think your consecrated prayer and solid study will get you there.
With love and support,
Elizabeth
Thanks for this article - just what I needed today.
Keith,
Thank you for your wonderful article.
I think that we all have had to pray about something that seemed to persisit in spite of our prayers. The healing has come for me when I yielded to the divine. I forgot the struggle and just yielded to the Christ, the Divine Comforter. It happened when I didn’t give it fuel, as you write, and I stopped believing in anything that wasn’t God-made.
Keith,
thank you so much for this article. It really helped me to crystalize similiar thoughts and prayers of mine.
I really appreciated your article. After a few healings of long standing physical problems, I have become much less impressed by what might seem to not yield quickly.
One day it came to me “Error is never progressing to something. It has no beginning, and God’s goodness is all that is going on for me now and always.” Simple -and very helpful for me.
Great blog! It reminds me not to just accept or tolerate pain or discomfort but to persist in knowing that God’s goodness will win out. And when we experience that healing we then realize that God’s goodness was always a part of us, and the error in thought we assumed was real wasn’t.
It reminds me of running marathons. I can find my self occassionally ready to give up during those 26.2 miles. “I’ve tried hard and it’s not getting any easier, so I’ll stop.” But those thoughts won’t get me to the finish line. So instead of me running out of fuel I let the error thoughts run out, and before I know it I’m running across the finish line. Persistence! What joy!